How necessary are minis in 3.5? Me and my friends were wanting to play a game, but without minis - just some pen, paper...

How necessary are minis in 3.5? Me and my friends were wanting to play a game, but without minis - just some pen, paper, rulebooks, and dice. However the initial intro in the book seems to make it clear that minis and grids are required. Have any of you played a 3.5 game without these materials? Did it work out okay?

You can just make cardboard tokens if you have fingers.

What I'm asking is how necessary is it to have 3D combat at all.

I've never played 3.5 without a combat grid map, but I imagine you could do that and it run okay.
It'd be less necessary than 4e's, but less freewheeling than 5e or pre-3 editions.

You can use grid paper taped together on the back side with 1 inch squares drawn on it. A cheap mat will only cost you 20+ shipping on amazon and can last a life time.

For tokens, we used to play with those glass pebbles used in fish tanks. You can get a bag of 25-35 for a dollar at almost any dollar store.

If you and your group are the types that can play chess with out needing a board and pieces, or can mentally visualize distances and locations, then you don't need them.

If you aren't, then yes you need them.

Honestly never used minis to play D&D until my current group. I've occasionally sketched something out real quick to explain a scene, or for example to indicate placement. But mostly I just go with what, who, where. 3.5 combat takes long enough without having to move things physically

Have played it for roughly ten years without minis.
Drop attacks of opportunity and use "zones" or "melees" for area of effect things and everything tends to run smoothly.

Nah, you can run shit in your head. You just take a fuzzier, more flexible approach. It's like if you were playing chess in your head and you couldn't remember whether your rook was on the queen or king's row, and the DM could just wave his hand and say "either way, it's close enough--do what you want to do."

Also, I've played chess without pieces before. As long as you're in practice, it's not that difficult. What I absolutely cannot do is play chess without a board, or at least something board-like to look at. Like, I can sketch out a grid on a piece of paper and that'll do just fine, but if I close my eyes, the spacial relationships start getting confused. Then again, I may just not be very geometrically inclined.

Do you think it is easier for new players (and I mean completely new to p&p entirely, not just to whatever edition of Dee and Dee specifically) to get the ball rolling if you use a grid? I am currently planning an adventure for a group of complete newbies on Sunday and while I have all sort of fun things planned out I just can't be fucking arsed to actually make physical maps and props.

In a system like 3.5? Yes. Combat will slow down considerably if people have to be verbally reminded of flanking, positioning, AoO, etc and newbies won't remember it themselves

It's actually 5e so keeping track of AoO and flanking is not that relevant but I get your point and it is the reason why I myself am concerned. Just wondering if someone has experienced running games for new players w/o a grid/minis.

I grew up playing old school D&D, which is more conducive to abstraction, so I've almost never used miniatures, even when playing 3.x. This makes it a bit tricky for me to answer your question though, since I don't have much perspective on what it's like to be a noob in 3.x.

I will say that I occasionally use some sort of visual aid when the battlefield gets confusing for some reason. I'll do a quick-and-dirty sketch of the general shape of battlefield with Xs and shit where people start out, or are at the time when shit gets confusing enough that a map is needed. I'll also use "dice graphics" to show the relative position of the different combatants: "Frank, you're the red d8 here, Sam, you're the blue d10 here, the white d6s are goblins, and the ogre is the green d20 here."

I'm actually not that fond of using miniatures when role-playing because they limit cinematics and immersion, and move things in the direction of a board game. I want people to have to picture everything in their head, and even if I do a quick sketch of the battlefield or use dice graphics, the real action is still going to be going on in people's minds.

Oh, I should add that one of the keys to running combat in the theater of your mind is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Don't be too rigid about where things are, because nobody else is going to have that precise knowledge at their fingertips. If somebody wants to move somewhere or do something, try to accommodate them. If they're close to being able to flank somebody, then let them go ahead and do it. This will speed play and keep your players happy.

Theater of the mind does run the risk of making large area of effects easy to abuse, since you don't have to worry about 'distance' or 'positioning', while simultaneously making the more unusual spells like Web more difficult to use since you lack an actual tactical map. Just something to be careful of when running 3.x without a map, since it's not really designed for it.

A U T I S M

I have repeatedly played without such things and it went fine.

Full grid is a bit overkill, but what I do like to have is a couple sheets of scratch paper: draw a couple of quick sketch lines for walls or terrain or whatever, put down colored beads or something for creatures, push around. Could also work with whiteboard and magnets or something. It's a nice aid to have even a token indicator of what's where.

Minis and Maps are just there to help represent the situation. They aren't necessary, you can play without them, but lowers the tactics aspect of the game (which you may or may not like) and pretty much leaves any sort of spatial representation up to the GM. That means most of the time that distances become irrelevant and 100% DM fiat. Which may or may not be frustrating to you, because it's probably going to be incredibly inconsistent and wether or not you can shoot that guy or reach him on foot will entirely depend on the DMs current mood.

Not super necessary.

A rough sketched out map helps though, even if you don't have minis.

For years we used a Whiteboard and dry erase markers, no grid. Played just fine.

I've played Pathfinder (which is basically the same goddamn thing) without any sort of grid and it's worked out fine - we just guestimated and handwaved distances.

Honestly, if you want to go gridless, it's not going to hurt you too much, but it is going to make super detailed positioning and tactical areas of effect a lot harder to deal with.

If you really want that, just get some grid paper and use skittles or cardboard tokens or something in place of minis. Or hell, just use regular paper and handwave distances - best of both worlds imo.

My first ever 3.5 adventure was without any miniatures at all. We played nearly a year without using minis.

Now? I'm addicted to them, for any game. They just make combat more fun and visual. I've sunk like 200 bucks into my miniature collection but I have nearly 80 minis and a few battle grids.

>How necessary are minis in 3.5?

>It's actually 5e

Get your shit together OP.